


Winter Winds

by RKMacBride



Series: Into the Wide World [3]
Category: Original Work, The Rat Patrol
Genre: Attempted Murder, Battle, El Alamein, Fire, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Gunshot Wounds, Hiking, Historical Accuracy, Historical Event, Hope, Mountains, Nature, Post-Battle, Prisoner of War, Suicide Attempt, Surgery, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2019-10-08 18:32:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17391479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RKMacBride/pseuds/RKMacBride
Summary: Winter Windsis a novel following my original character Friedrich Arnheiter from his wounding and capture at the battle of El Alamein through the winter of 1942-43 and his experiences in a British POW camp in western Scotland. While imprisoned, he begins to rediscover who he was before the war and makes decisions that will have important ramifications for years to come.





	1. The Last Day

**I. The Way to Dusty Death**

**8\. November**  
Second Battle of El Alamein  
West of Mersa Matruh  


**1:30 p.m.**

          The 21st Panzer Division had narrowly escaped being encircled by the British 7th Armoured and were now in full retreat, trying to reach the Halfaya Pass. No one was saying the actual word “flee”, but that is in fact what they were doing, with the British and New Zealanders under Montgomery in hot pursuit.

          Corporal Friedrich Arnheiter, of the 3rd Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, was among the DAK troops racing for the pass that day. He had gotten separated from the rest of his company, but had managed to climb aboard a communications truck belonging to another company of 3rd Recon. Clinging to the inside of the swaying vehicle, he kept peering out of the back, searching for any of his own comrades in _Kompanie_ 4, but especially the company commander, _Hauptmann_ Dietrich, whom he had not seen at all since some time the day before when their whole company had gotten scattered by a sudden attack.  Finding the captain—or anyone else—was probably impossible, yet he still had hope. The approach to Halfaya Pass was a bottleneck which would funnel together all of the various German and Italian units trying to reach it. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t bring himself to rest as long as he might by some miracle be able to spot their own unit markings on any of the disordered mass of armored vehicles limping away from the chaos at El Alamein.

 

**2:40 p.m.**

          By the middle of the afternoon, the company clerk’s hope was nearly dashed. In a few more hours it would be sunset, and with the fading light, he would have no way to see if any of the other vehicles were of his own company. His eyes were stinging from the dust and exhaustion, so he almost missed seeing a broken-down vehicle off to his right as the radio truck passed it. The unit marks were not familiar, but… then his heart leaped as he saw the tall officer limping wearily away from the vehicle. That man—his own captain—he would recognize anywhere on earth.  He tried to shout, but he could have shouted until the Day of Judgment and no one inside, much less outside, the radio truck would hear him over the sounds of the engine, nearby gunfire, exploding shells, and flapping canvas overhead. Scrambling to his feet, Arnheiter drew his sidearm and fired into the air, and the officer looked up. It was too late; the truck was leaving Hans Dietrich in its wake, alone and on foot.

          “ _Halt_!” the fair-haired corporal shouted as he charged forward to where the driver sat. “Stop the truck! That’s my captain out there!”

          The driver shook his head. “Can’t! They’ll catch us! He can’t make it anyway!”

          Arnheiter, normally an unassuming young man, had read about _berserkers_ before, in old stories about the days of the bearded Northmen in their dragon-prowed longships, but he had never known how it felt to be one—until now. Before he even knew what he was doing, pulse roaring in his ears, he was holding the pistol to the driver’s head. “You miserable coward! Stop the truck! We don’t abandon our own officers—what do you think we are?!  You have three seconds: one, two…”

          The truck stopped, as the driver realized that the young maniac holding the pistol meant exactly what he said. “He can’t make it, he can’t… you’re giving us up to the _Engländer_ … _bis’ du verrückt?_ ”he shouted in a Rhineland accent, bordering on panic.

          Unmoved, Arnheiter’s hold on the pistol didn’t waver. “My captain holds his school’s record for the hundred meters… he’ll make it. And so will we.”

          A sound from the rear of the truck several seconds later caused Arnheiter to glance long enough to see that Hauptmann Dietrich was scrambling up into the rear opening. He holstered the pistol, and ran back to give the tall officer a hand. The truck lurched into motion so abruptly that he nearly fell over from the inertia, and Dietrich would have fallen to the ground outside if he had not seized Arnheiter’s outstretched hand and forearm. “ _Sehr vielen Dank_ ,” Dietrich said finally, breathing hard, as he hauled himself inside and his clerk handed over his canteen of water without a word. “What made them stop the truck?”

          Arnheiter coughed, suddenly realizing to his dismay that just minutes earlier, he had actually been holding a sergeant at gunpoint. “Don’t ask, _mein Herr, bitte_ …you don’t want to know.” _I will be in so much trouble—that is, if I’m still alive to be court-martialed sometime next week when we stop running._

Dietrich gave the younger man an odd look, but decided not to pursue that. There would be time later; he had other concerns now. “Where are the others? Kunzler, Bergmann…?”

          The clerk shook his head, at a loss. “ _Keine Idee, Herr Hauptmann_.  I have spent the entire day with these men from _Kompanie 1_. I have been looking for our men, but the only one I have found is yourself, sir.”

          A sudden fusillade of gunfire put an end to their conversation. _Verdammt nochmal!_ thought Arnheiter with a sudden fury. _You’re not even going to give me three minutes to make a report, are you?_ he swore silently at the pursuing British unit which was rapidly gaining on them, their Browning machine gun roaring. _Perhaps that coward of a sergeant was right…they may catch us after all._ He struggled to his feet and grabbed the machine gun that Dietrich passed to him, and fired back at the armed British Land Rover, attempting to hit the driver or at least blow out one of the forward tires. Behind him and to his left, Dietrich had braced himself against the side of the swaying truck and was starting to fire as well.

          Arnheiter moved forward a step or two to get a better shot, and was just squeezing the trigger when bursts of white-hot pain exploded across his legs, he felt himself falling, and he knew nothing more.

           Smoke pouring from under the hood, the British Land Rover ceased fire and veered off, but in the back of _Kompanie_ 1’s comm truck, Dietrich had no attention to spare for them. Sick at heart, he saw only the body of his loyal clerk, his intrepid driver, lying motionless in the sand behind them as the truck rumbled away. There was nothing to be done for poor Arnheiter now; even if he ordered the driver to stop, even if they were not being pursued by the enemy, they were already more than a mile away. It was too late. _Too little, too late_ , he said quietly, realizing only then that his breeches were splashed with blood not his own.   

<<<<<>>>>> 

**4:45 p.m.**

          The sun was low in the afternoon sky when corpsman Bill Jones started to walk back to the ambulance after surveying the now-silent battleground. They were headed westward, following in the wake of the 7th Armoured Division, searching for the wounded.  He paused and turned back, frowning. Had he heard something, or was it just the wind?  He looked again—there. A lone man in a German uniform was lying face down in the sand, nearly in the path where dozens of vehicles had passed by. Jones had almost not seen him at all. Loping over to the man, he saw that both of the young German’s trouser legs were soaked with blood, but he knelt on the ground to check for a pulse anyway.  To his surprise, the soldier’s heart was beating, and he stirred a little when the corpsman turned him face up. “Blimey!” exclaimed Jones. “’E ain’t gone after all… Alfie! Over ‘ere!” he shouted. “Bring a stretcher and tourniquets.” 

<<<<<>>>>> 

           As twilight faded into night, the stars came out; the winter night sky was as glorious as ever, but Dietrich saw none of its beauty. He stared out into the darkness as they rolled across the desert, his vision blurred by unshed tears.

**8:40 p.m.**

          At the other side of Halfaya Pass, the scattered sections of 21st Panzer Division were attempting to collect themselves in some kind of order and regroup to withstand the 8th Army’s next attack. Little by little, companies and battalions were slowly assembling together as the stragglers who had escaped from Montgomery’s devastating onslaughts arrived at the rendezvous point.

          “Fifty-two men killed or missing,” said Lieutenant Heinz Bergmann, shaking his head gloomily. “In the last three weeks. That’s forty percent of the company, _mein Herr…_ ”

          “Fifty-three now,” Dietrich replied quietly. He and his three lieutenants—no, only two now—were seated on the ground around a small fire, along with _Kompanie Dietrich’_ s first sergeant Georg Kunzler, sharing among them the meager provisions that could be scraped together. It was typical of Dietrich’s company that he had ordered that any food be given to the men first, so the officers were making do as best they could.

          Kunzler took in the commanding officer’s grim tone and demeanor, and suddenly became aware there was one man whom he had not seen since the day before— Arnheiter, their indefatigable company clerk. Normally, he would be moving briskly about just as he had done following the battles at Alam el Halfa, taking an on-the-spot roll call and making note of all those who needed medical attention and what supplies were needed. Then, as Kunzler looked again, in the firelight he could see that his captain’s breeches were heavily spattered with blood although he was himself unwounded. _That’s how he knows… the boy must have been killed right in front of him._ “Arnheiter,” he said with a heavy sigh. It wasn’t a question.

          Dietrich’s dark eyes held an unreadable expression. “ _Ja. Genau das_.” He looked as though he didn’t want to say anything more, but a moment later he added, “He was rescuing me.” As he looked down at his own forearm where Arnheiter had seized hold of him to help him into the comm truck, he noticed in a strangely detached way that one of his sleeve buttons had come off at some point.

          Emil Bergmann nodded. “ _Natürlich.”_ With pride in their men, he gestured around them at the surviving members of their company, gathered in small groups around fires here and there, attempting to eat and rest as best they could. Their medic, Paul Schäfer, was tending one man after another as he moved around the field. “All of them would do the same, _mein Herr,_ every one—but he more than most…”

          “He loved you, you know.” Kunzler spoke up, his throat tight. He remembered well the anxious, shy youth who had arrived in their company thirteen months earlier. “He loved you as the apostles loved our Lord.  Nothing in the world he wouldn’t do for you, _mein Herr_.” _And I know that boy—he would not have regretted it for an instant even if he had known it was his last act on earth._

          None of the four around that fire spoke.

          Some minutes later, _Feldwebel_ Georg Kunzler rose to his feet and stepped up onto a nearby rock where he could be seen and heard by the assembled men around them. He pulled a folded paper from his pocket. “These are the men who are fallen in battle today, or captured, or missing.” By announcing their names in the company, it allowed the men to honor their dead as well as be aware of whose duties needed to be picked up by others. As usual, he read off their names in alphabetical order. “ _Obersoldat_ Ernst Altenbach,  _Obergefreiter_ Friedrich Arnheiter, _Soldat_ Peter Braun, _Gefreiter_ Helmut Engelmann, _Obergefreiter_ Konrad Genscher…”

          “Genscher and Braun weren’t killed,” a voice called out from somewhere in the dark. “I saw them and a few others being taken away by _die Engländer_.”     

 _“Danke.” There’s precious little good news this night,_ thought Kunzler, _but we’ll take what good news we can get…_ He went on. “ _Gefreiter_ August Krähenbuhl,  _Obersoldat_ Walter Reinke, _Feldwebel_ Richard Teichmann…”

          When he reached the end of the list of the eleven men who were new casualties, Kunzler stepped down from the rock he was standing on. A tall lanky man with dark hair and a neatly trimmed moustache—the first sergeant recognized him as Rudolf Hartmann the tanker, and a good friend of both Genscher and Arnheiter—rose to his feet and began to sing in a baritone voice. His lone voice was joined by seventy others as he began the second half of the old German colonial song “Heia Safari.”

>   _…Und saßen wir am Feuer_  
>  Des Nachts wohl vor dem Zelt,  
>  Lag wie in stiller Feier,  
>  Um uns die nächt'ge Welt.  
>  Und über dunkle Hänge,  
>  Tönt es wie ferne Klänge  
>  Von Trägern und Askari:  
>  Heia, heia Safari!  
>    
>  Tret' ich die letzte Reise,  
>  Die große Fahrt einst an,  
>  Auf, singt mir diese Weise  
>  Statt Trauerlieder dann,  
>  Daß meinem Jägerohre  
>  Dort vor dem Himmelstore  
>  Es klingt wie ein Halali:  
>  Heia, heia Safari! **[1]**

 Hartmann’s voice failed him at the last, but by then the assembled voices of the whole company supported him and carried the song to its end.

          Dietrich rose from the stone he was sitting on and made his way through the company as they prepared to secure the makeshift camp and attempt to rest for the night. He knew that the sight of him moving among them would encourage the men and give them solace even in this time of defeat. Although his outward bearing was calm and poised, inwardly he was in turmoil.

          That day it had struck him, as clearly and sharply as a bolt of lightning, that in fact there was no hope of victory for them anymore or even survival, neither for their division nor the entire Afrika Korps. The only possible outcome for the campaign in Africa, now that the Americans had landed in force in Tunisia a couple of days earlier, was a long and fruitless retreat. Word had arrived from Rome that no further help would come from Italy—neither supplies nor ammunition, nor the fuel needed to drive the once-mighty Panzers across the desert sands. He could no longer do anything to protect his men, or to save them from being destroyed one by one, abandoned to their fate. _There is nothing to be done. In the end it is the same; no matter how brave or resourceful my men are, they will be sacrificed to no purpose, feeding the cruel Minotaur that awaits us all._

**9:25 p.m.**

           Konrad Genscher lay in one of the post-operative beds, conscious now, and with the pain of his wounded shoulder dulled by morphine. It was not the first time he’d been in a field hospital—but certainly the first time he’d been in a British one. _For me, it seems, the war is over_. He did not relish the idea of being a prisoner of war, but from what he’d heard about how the French in North Africa treated their prisoners, he counted himself fortunate to have fallen into the hands of the English instead.  He had taken a bullet in the front of his left shoulder, which had penetrated far enough to fracture the shoulder blade. It felt as though the surgeons had used a steam shovel to remove the bullet.  He’d gotten an injection of penicillin and the wound was packed in gauze.  All things considered, his case could have been far worse.

          As Genscher lay there half-awake, trying to think of what he would write to his parents in Marienstadt, among all the other voices around him groaning or swearing as they came out of the anesthesia, he heard one familiar voice. It was the same voice he’d heard in the other half of his tent every morning and every night for over a year. “Papa, help me… Papa, I can’t get up…” said his roommate Friedrich Arnheiter’s tenor voice, clearly audible over the general noise of the post-op tent. At least that’s who it sounded like.

          The fuzziness of the morphine started to fade as Konrad struggled to sit up in spite of the nausea he felt from the anesthetic wearing off. “Fritz, is that you? It’s me, Konrad, I’m over here…” _Papa? _he wondered, bewildered at what his roommate was saying. _His father died years ago… what’s he thinking of?_

 _“_ Oh, no, you don’t,” said the British corpsman, who materialized out of nowhere and seized Genscher’s sound arm as he tried to get out of the bed. “You’re not getting up, lad, you’ll fall flat on your face.” A nearby nurse came over to translate.

          Genscher turned to him, suddenly angry. “My best friend is over there, and he’s terrified. He doesn’t know where he is. You can help me, or I will crawl over there on my knees and one hand.” He shook his arm free, determined, and slid his legs off the bed as the nurse repeated his words in English.

          “Stone the crows!” exclaimed the corpsman, shaking his head. “Half a tick, then…” He left the ward and came back with a wheelchair. “You fall and muck up that shoulder, the surgeons’ll have my guts for garters.” The English nurse declined to even try translating that into her rusty college German.

          “Papa,” Arnheiter groaned again, shifting position to try to ease the intense pain in his legs. “Papa, I need you… help me.”

          “I’m sorry, my boy,” said the other corpsman approaching the bed, a young man about their own age with short dark hair and glasses who looked like a teacher. His voice was calm and soothing, with an unusual accent—sounding as fluent in the language as if he’d spoken it all his life, but with an accent Genscher couldn’t recognize. He must have grown up outside of Germany somewhere. “Your papa isn’t here.  We’ll help you if we can.”

          The young blond soldier finally looked up, “But…he was right there with me, hunting—we were both shooting…” Then his blue eyes grew wide with alarm, as he recognized the last voice he’d heard—the last thing he remembered. “No… it wasn’t Papa… it was _Hauptmann_ Dietrich!” he exclaimed, seeing Konrad Genscher being wheeled toward him. “Konrad, I found Herr Hauptmann… _ach Gott,_ it hurts…”

          “I’m right here,” said Konrad, resolving not to let his expression react to what he saw as he came next to Arnheiter’s bed. _Oh Fritz, I thank God you’re alive, but… how do I tell you this?_ Aloud he said, “What hurts? The nurse is over there, she can help maybe.”

          “ _Das Knie_ ,” his roommate groaned, “ _das Knie…_ ”

          Konrad Genscher was now at a complete loss, as he saw his friend’s bandaged left thigh, where blood had seeped slowly through the dressing. _How can that be? His left knee isn’t wounded, and his right knee isn’t there. _He reached to grip his friend’s hand firmly with his own right hand, as his left arm was immobilized in plaster. “Your knee?” he repeated, not knowing what else to say and exchanging worried glances with the corpsman.

          “ _Ja, das rechte Knie_ …” said Arnheiter, pushing himself up with his left arm as if he meant to show them where it hurt. He began to reach for the site of the pain and then stopped, staring at his own legs in complete shock. As Genscher had already seen, the clerk’s right leg was amputated several inches above his knee. His moving about had disarranged the sheets; what was left of his right thigh, also firmly bandaged, was exposed to view. He said nothing more; shocked beyond words, he slowly sank back into the pillow with the help of the corpsman. 

<<<<<>>>>> 

          It was not unlike being frozen, or perhaps electrocuted—no words would come to his mind, or even coherent thoughts.  The last thing Arnheiter could clearly remember was that their reconnaissance company had gotten scattered as vehicles failed, were destroyed, or ran out of fuel, and his sole concern for the last hours had been trying to find the rest of their men. What had happened to him? Utterly bewildered, he had not the slightest idea how he had come here, or even where ‘here’ was. The only thing he could remember, and that dimly, was that he had found Hauptmann Dietrich after hours of anxious searching.

          After some time, he heard a low murmuring sound, or rather a voice—familiar and comforting although he didn’t know what the words meant.  He looked for the familiar voice, and then realized that Konrad—dear, good old Konrad—was still sitting by his side, gripping his hand with his one uninjured hand, and his well-worn black rosary beads in the fingers of his other hand. He was murmuring the Latin prayers he had said every night and morning for the year and more they had known one another. “ _Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen_ … _Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus,_ …” said his Bavarian friend and roommate, eyes closed, and with tears on his dark lashes.

          “Forgive me, Konrad,” Arnheiter finally said, sounding even to himself as if he were speaking from a great distance or the bottom of a deep well. At that moment, it seemed as if his voice, his mind, and his body—or what was left of it—weren’t quite connected to each other. “I didn’t even notice that you’re wounded, too…”

          “ _Gott sei Dank’ im Himmel,”_ breathed Konrad in gratitude. “Talk to me, Fritz, don’t just stare like that…” For a terrifying fifteen minutes, his friend had said absolutely nothing, lying there unmoving as if he had been turned to stone by some evil sorcerer’s spell.

          “Your arm…”

          “Not as bad as it looks. I was shot, here…” he indicated his left shoulder where the bullet wound was. “But it broke the shoulder bone, too.” His upper arm and upper torso was encased in plaster, with an opening over the front of his shoulder for cleaning the wound. “They say it will be all right in time.”

          “Where were you?” Arnheiter was still trying to put the pieces together. “Did you see…? I don’t know what happened … I can’t remember… _ich weiß nicht wie_ …”

          The nurse came back to the two men from Kompanie 4, and spoke to Arnheiter directly. “This is a British field hospital. One of our medical units brought you in a few hours ago. What they told us was that they found you, badly wounded but still alive. From the location of the wounds in your legs, they guessed that you were standing in an open truck when you were shot,” she explained quietly, reaching to count the fair-haired corporal’s pulse in his wrist. “We did all that we could. The wound in your left leg should heal well enough, but the right one…I’m sorry. The knee joint was shattered. There was nothing else to be done.”

          “ _So ist das Leben,”_  Arnheiter said, dazed from the shock of finding himself not only a cripple, but in the enemy’s hands as well. _If we are all prisoners, then…_ All at once, he was seized with an awful thought, realizing that his first duty as company clerk, as far as he was concerned, still remained undone. “ _Ach, Gott…_ Where is _Herr Hauptmann_?” A wave of panic washed over him, as he realized that Hauptmann Dietrich could be out there anywhere, in any kind of trouble one could imagine, and he himself was utterly helpless either to search for the captain, or to help him even if he could find him. He couldn’t even get up from the bed he was confined to.

          “ _Ich habe keine Idee,_ ” said Genscher gravely. “No idea. When they brought me in, while I was waiting my turn with the surgeon, I asked everyone here, and described _Hauptmann_ Dietrich to all the doctors and nurses, and told them his name. No one has seen any officer of his description. Do you know his service number? I don’t.”

          “Of course I do. And yours, and Bergmann’s, and everyone else’s. It’s my job to know…” Suddenly, to his horror, he realized that those numbers, which he had known by heart for months, had completely vanished from his recollection. He wasn’t sure if he even remembered his own.

          Then the nurse shook her head, and moved to wheel Konrad’s chair away. “You’re becoming too agitated. Both of you need to rest. You’re going to be moved into the ward, to make room for men who are coming out of surgery next.”

          Genscher looked up at her, and at the doctor who was just entering the post-surgical area. “Please place us together, _Herr Doktor_ …” He was not too proud to beg for that.

          The doctor nodded. “I think that can be arranged.”

 

          Completely unaware that he was being mourned among the many dead, Friedrich Arnheiter lay quietly in his cot in the field hospital. One thing at least was familiar; a few feet away in the next bed, he could hear Konrad Genscher snoring softly.

          The most recent dose of morphine dulled both the pain of his wounds and his fears about what sort of future might await him, if in fact there were any future for him at all.

          The nightly sign-off of _Soldatensender_ Belgrade with the customary playing of “Lili Marleen” was a comfort to the wounded young soldier.

          At the same time, it consoled his grieving comrades miles away in their makeshift bivouac, where someone had tuned in one of the vehicle radios, a minute or so late:

                                       

> _... Unsere beide Schatten_  
>  _Sah'n wie einer aus,_  
>  _Daß wir so lieb uns hatten_  
>  _Das sah man gleich daraus,_  
>  _Und alle Leute soll'n es seh'n_  
>  _Wenn wir bei der Laterne steh'n_  
>  _Wie einst, Lili Marleen._  
> 
> 
> ___Schon rief der Posten,_  
>  _Sie blasen Zapfenstreich,_  
>  _Das kann drei Tage kosten—_  
>  _Kam'rad, ich komm’ ja gleich!_  
>  _Da sagten wir auf Wiederseh’n_  
>  _Wie gerne wollt ich mit dir geh'n;_  
>  _Mit dir, Lili Marleen… **[2]**_  
> 

__

Before the song had concluded, Arnheiter had drifted into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

[1] This game-hunting and soldiering song dates from 1916 in German colonial East Africa, and was “immensely popular” both during WWI and after. It’s quite long, so I have quoted here only the last two verses.The best translation I have found is this one, though I have amended it slightly. It and the history of the song can be found at <https://almostchosenpeople.wordpress.com/2015/08/07/heia-safari/>.

  _We sat around the fire_  
_At night before the tent_  
_At peace in silent ritual_  
_The world at night around us._  
_Across the darkened mountains_  
_Echoes are still resounding_  
_Of bearers and Askari_  
_Hurray! Hurray! Safari!_

 

 _When I go on my last trek_  
_And begin the great Journey_  
_Come and sing to me in this way_  
_Instead of with mournful hymns,_  
_So that to my hunter’s ear_  
_Before the gates of Heaven_  
_It sounds like the Halali (Horn call announcing the end of the hunt)_  
_Hurray! Hurray! Safari!_

[2] The complete lyrics of “Lied Eines Jungen Wachtpostens” (the actual title of the song we know as "Lili Marleen"), along with a very close English translation (not the well-known recorded English “version” with completely different and unrelated words) can be found here: <http://lyricstranslate.com/en/lili-marleen-lili-marlene.html>.

 


	2. Songs in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the next few days in the British field hospital, both Arnheiter and his friend Konrad Genscher begin coming to terms with their uncertain futures as prisoners of war. Konrad discovers a way he can help all of them raise their spirits under the circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains several traditional German songs from the 19th century. 
> 
> The character of Joe Early, whom we know from _Emergency!_ , makes a cameo appearance in this chapter, and briefly in the previous chapter as well, as a German-speaking American medic in the field hospital.

**Chapter 2**

**Songs In The Night**

 

_Storms make trees take deeper roots._  


_\--Anon._

_Life is mostly froth and bubble, yet two things stand like stone: Kindness in another's trouble, courage in your own._  


_\--Adam Lindsay Gordon_

**12\. November**

          The next three days—at least, Arnheiter guessed it to be three days, judging by the cycles of daylight and darkness—passed in a blur of pain alternating with periods of drugged sleep. Yet, even when he was conscious and awake, he was unable to summon any recognizable feelings, or even coherent thoughts. He swallowed water and tablets when they were given to him, submitted to injections, and moved or changed position when told, like an obediently trained dog.

          Years later, he could only say that it felt as if his mind had departed into some strange place without him, absent without leave.

          The second day in the field hospital, he was suddenly overcome with an attack of uncontrollable laughter at the absurd realization that he no longer needed any more treatment for the infected scorpion sting on his right ankle. Poor Konrad had stared at him, horrified, even when he had tried to explain that the scorpion bite was now permanently cured. Except for that one incident, he had been unable to talk to anyone about much of anything.

           On the fourth day, Konrad Genscher lay awake. Between his shoulder wound and the fractured scapula, his entire left side was aching mercilessly. He was thinking of something else, however, and trying to take his mind off his own pain. There had to be something he could do to help his best friend, half asleep four feet away from him. _I cannot change what has happened, and I cannot make him better. What is there I can say?_

          An hour or two later, the imminent arrival of the daily tea cart caught his attention.  At first, the Bavarian had found it amusing that British field hospitals had a tea trolley brought around every afternoon by a junior nurse, but today it gave him an idea. Along with the tea, the lower shelf of the cart carried books, newspapers—in English, not German. But he remembered seeing a few other things, including paper, pencils, and playing cards.  He looked around the ward, and signaled to the German-speaking corpsman that he wanted to get up.  The corpsman, whose name tag read “Ehrle”, left and returned presently with a wheelchair. He helped Konrad into it, and moved the chair so he was sitting beside Arnheiter in the next bed.

          When the tea trolley approached their end of the ward, Konrad signaled to her that he would like two cups, and she smiled and handed one to him and one to the corpsman, who placed it on the small table between the beds. He bent carefully and said, “ _Na, du, Fritz_ ,” as he might have done on any ordinary day. “Here, this is yours.”

          Arnheiter opened his eyes and looked at him, bewildered. “ _Wie, bitte_?”

          “Sorry, it’s only tea,” Konrad said. “It’s not cantaloupe _Schnaps_ , but it’s the best I can do in this place. See, they caught me stealing car parts to make the still…” he added with a straight face, and hoped against hope.

          The silliness of what Konrad had just said took a moment to register. Then the blond Thuringian’s eyes lost their empty look as he started to chuckle. “ _Dummkopf,”_ he said, sounding like himself again, at least for the moment, for the first time in days. He raised himself on his left elbow and took the cup from Konrad’s one good hand. The corpsman handed the other cup of steaming milk tea to Genscher and began to move on to see to other patients.

          Before the corpsman Ehrle left, Genscher turned to him once more and pantomimed jumping checkers on a board. “ _Haben Sie Damenspiel da_?”

          Ehrle bent to look on the cart, before the nurse wheeled it away, and shook his head. _“Tut mir leid,”_ he apologized. “ _Möchten Sie Spielkarten?”_

          “ _Gut_ ,” the Bavarian agreed, and accepted the pack of playing cards that was passed to him instead of the checkers set. He handed the cards to Arnheiter.

          “You’ll have to deal, Fritz,” he said matter-of-factly, “I can’t.” With his left arm and shoulder in plaster, he could hold things in the fingers of his left hand, but not well enough to deal or shuffle cards.

          Arnheiter took the pack of cards, as the corpsman spoke briefly with the nurse. “Before you begin your game,” Ehrle said to Arnheiter as he returned, “I am told it is time to turn you over.”

          The fair-haired corporal frowned, confused. “Turn me over? _Ich verstehe nicht._ ”

          “ _Ja, wie ein Pfannkuchen,”_ Ehrle explained, with a gesture like flipping a pancake. “Three times a day you must spend thirty minutes lying face down. It is to stretch this muscle,” he explained, indicating the hip flexors in the front of his own hip and thigh. “If this is not done, the muscle will contract, grow shorter, and not work correctly later when you will need it. So finish your tea and we will come back in a few minutes and do this.”

          Twenty minutes later, after the nurse and corpsman had finished, Arnheiter sighed and dealt the cards, now lying on his stomach on the bed, propped on his elbows. Getting him turned over had been more painful than he wanted to admit, and they were going to keep doing it to him, three times a day, like it or not.

          However, before their game got underway, he noticed that Konrad wasn’t really paying attention. Instead of picking up his cards, his friend was eyeing the corpsman with a frown. “ _Entschuldigung,”_ said Genscher, “ _aber ich habe eine Frage._ ”

          “ _Kein Problem,”_ replied the medic, curious to know what the soldier’s question was.

          “May I ask, sir, where did you learn German? Your uniform has the American flag on it, but _die Amis_ aren’t fighting here except for a few volunteers here and there.” _Like the Rat Patrol,_ he mused, and went on. “Yet you speak Deutsch as if it is your mother tongue.”

          Far from being offended by Genscher’s curiosity, Ehrle chuckled, obviously amused by the question. “That’s because it is my mother tongue. I spoke German before I spoke English.”

          “How is that possible? There are Germans in _die Vereinigten Staaten_?”

          Joseph Ehrle[1] laughed. “Of course there are, my friend. Hundreds of thousands of them. Millions of them, possibly. German is the second-most spoken language in the whole country. Why do you ask?”

          “Because you speak as if you have spoken it all your life, but your accent doesn’t sound like anyone else’s I have heard.”

          “Ah. Well, there is a story behind that. Which I am happy to tell you, but you are playing cards.”

          Konrad glanced quickly at Arnheiter, and went on. “The game can wait a few minutes... we are in no hurry.”

          “Very well,” Ehrle began, with an amiable smile. He pulled over a chair, and sat down briefly to relate his story. “There are in fact many places in America where there are so many German immigrants living there that German is the common local language. One of those regions is in the state of Iowa. It’s called the “Seven Villages”, or _die Amana-Kolonien_ , and that is where I was born and grew up. In Amana we speak three languages—English with outsiders, and _Hochdeutsch_ in school, and _Kolonie-deutsch_ among ourselves.” He decided not to try explaining about the Amish and Mennonite communities that were in tbe same region.

          Arnheiter was listening now, too, the card game pushed out of his mind by his own curiosity about the amiable corpsman with the strange accent—the American-born medic who had grown up speaking German. “I do not know this word, Amana,” he said slowly, puzzled. “It is not a German word, I think.”

          “No, it is not. It is a word from the Bible. We in Amana are a religious community, and not Lutherans or Catholics. We are called the Community of True Inspiration.”

          Genscher’s eyes widened in surprise. “What are they doing in America?”

          “Our ancestors were in Hesse for a long time, since the 1700s, but the government opposed us because we do not believe in fighting and we do not serve as soldiers. Even today, we do not, which is why I am a medic. It is a very long story[2], and one day perhaps I can tell you more. But we left Hesse and came to America a century ago, in 1842.” Ehrle smiled again as he got up and moved to put back the chair. “And that is why I am here with the British in North Africa now—it is a place where an American medical student whose mother tongue is German can make himself of use.”

          There were a number of the other men in the ward who had been listening as well, fascinated by the young American’s story.

          Konrad gestured to his friend once more. “It’s still your deal, Fritz…”

**19\. November**

          _This is a very strange thing,_ Arnheiter reflected as he lay quietly in the ward unable to sleep. He’d been wounded and in a field hospital once before, over a year earlier; being both wounded and a prisoner, however, was quite unlike anything else in his experience. For the first time that he could remember, he was not responsible for anything. Rather than relief, this fact made him more depressed than otherwise. No one needed him now; no one was depending on him. He was not sure if it mattered anymore whether he lived or perished, just one more life lost in the fruitless desert war.

          Having at the moment no duties to speak of, he had a great deal of time and no tasks with which to fill it. What he did have ample time for was to worry. _Was soll ich tun?_ was the question that lay in wait for his mind every time he attempted to rest. _What am I going to do? How am I going to live? How will I be able to work, to survive, to care for die Familie in their old age...?_

          He had dreamed the night before that he was a street beggar in a ruined city, fighting half-starved mongrel dogs for scraps of food. He was not the sole support of his family, as his _Onkel_ Helmut still was employed by the _Reichspost_. But once _der Onkel_ became too old, then the responsibility for _die Eltern_ would be his. He thought of them all—his grandmother, his uncle, and his aunt—as his _Eltern_ , even though they were not his actual parents; _die Tante_ Trudi, after all, was the only mother he knew. _Better for them if I had been killed,_ he thought to himself bitterly. _At least they would get some money from the government. Now, they’ll get nothing._

          Absorbed in such cheerful thoughts, he did not at first notice when Konrad Genscher spoke to him quietly from the next bed. “You’re awake, Fritz... _was ist los_?”

          “ _Alles,_ ” said his friend and roommate with a deep sigh. “Everything.” He told Konrad his fears about the future. “Who will ever give me a job? I’ll end up on the street begging for _Pfennige_ with an old tin cup.”

          “Always the worrier, that’s you,” scoffed Genscher affectionately, reaching out with his sound arm to thump his friend’s shoulder. “What, you think the war is ending next month? By Christmas, maybe?” He shook his head. “Fritz, _alter Junge_ , you are worrying about things that are years away, my friend. Even if the war ends before New Year—and it won’t, believe me—I wager _die Engländer_ are not letting us go for a long, long time. Who knows, we might be thirty years old before we ever see our own mountains, our _Gebirge,_ once more.” With some difficulty, he struggled to sit up so he could see Arnheiter’s face in the dim light. He debated whether or not to say what he had in mind, but he knew he had to. Keeping his voice low, he went on. “There is something I should tell you.”

          Arnheiter frowned, curious about Konrad’s sudden seriousness. “What is it?”

          “You will think I am crazy, or having a _Schnaps-Idee_ , but you must believe me, Fritz. Everything’s going to be all right. It is, really.”

          “ _Wie, bitte?_ What are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense...”

          “I know it doesn’t, but it’s true all the same. I promise you, everything’s going to be all right. With you, with me. Those things you’re worrying about aren’t going to happen. I know it.” He spoke with a tone of complete conviction.

          They had had some strange conversations in the past, but this one was more strange than usual. “How do you know this? And I don’t understand what you mean...”

          Now was the sticky part. “Fritz, I know because I saw it: you, me, your wife and _Kinder_ , in this meadow on a mountain with blue flowers all around, blue and white ones. There were some other people too, other families. You had on _lederhosen_ , and mountain boots, and had a staff, a _Wanderstock_.”

          Incredulous, Arnheiter stared back at his best friend. “I, in lederhosen? Like this?” He gestured to what was left of his right leg above the knee. “Impossible.” _I, with a wife? With children? There’s no hope of that now._

          Another voice spoke up nearby. “Will you two shut it? We’re trying to get some sleep!”

          “I know, Willi. I’m sorry. Just a minute, that’s all. If you want, then I’ll sing you a lullaby,” replied Genscher cheerfully.

          Arnheiter lowered his voice and asked, “What do you mean, you saw it? _Das macht keinen Sinn...”_

          “It was a few nights ago,” the Bavarian radioman began, “I was praying.”

          “Yes.” A devout Catholic, his roommate had never made any secret of it. Konrad always said all his rosary prayers, morning and evening too. “ _Na und_?”

          “And I was praying for you and for me, and Wolf and Rudi too, asking _der Herr Gott_ that we get safe home again one day, and then I saw this scene, just like in the cinema. It wasn’t a dream—I was awake, not sleeping—but a vision, of you and me some time in the future. And you were walking a trail. Visions like that come from God. So I believe everything will be all right.”

          Arnheiter sighed heavily. “I wish it could be true, Konrad. But Lilo won’t want me now.”

          “Trust me, trust _der Herr Gott_. You wait and see. Look, here is the good thing. When this is all over, we don’t have to be soldiers ever any more—no matter what happens, neither you nor I will ever fight again, my friend.” The British doctors had told Genscher that he would not lose his arm, but that the nerve damage meant he would have very limited use of it. “Now, you can be a painter again, Fritz. For that you need your hands, your eyes and your head. Knees are not so important for an artist, _ja_? And I can still play a guitar and sing. One day, just wait, I will be a famous folk singer and you will be my manager since you are so good with paperwork. And we will make pots of money and have to escape from the back door of concert halls because thousands of screaming girls will rush the stage to tear my clothes off...” Konrad kept embroidering his castle in the air, until he heard a welcome sound as Arnheiter finally burst out laughing from the sheer absurdity of his friend’s ridiculous pipe dream. _Thank God!_ Konrad thought to himself. _For ten days, he has been like a wooden statue._

“Hey, are you going to sing or not?” The man who had scolded them earlier for talking spoke up again.

          “ _Wie, bitte_?” Genscher asked.

          “You said, Genscher,” came another voice out of the darkened corner of the hospital tent, “that you would sing us a lullaby if we waited for you to finish talking.”

          “ _Ach du lieber_ ,” exclaimed Konrad, embarrassed. “I was only joking... _es war nur ein Scherz_.”

          “So what? Sing us something anyway.”

          “ _Wirklich_? All right...” Suddenly faced with his first command performance, he turned to Arnheiter, frantic. “What should I sing?”

          Arnheiter sat up in the bed and reached to help Genscher sit up farther, in a position where he could breathe deeply enough to sing. “Something nice,” he said, “or something funny. No _Soldatenlieder_.”

          “All right...” He thought about it a moment, and then began.

> _Am Brunnen vor dem Tore_  
>  Da steht ein Lindenbaum:  
>  Ich träumt’ in seinem Schatten  
>  So manchen süßen Traum.  
>    
>  Ich schnitt in seine Rinde  
>  So manches liebe Wort;  
>  Es zog in Freud und Leide  
>  Zu ihm mich immer fort.  
>    
>  Ich mußt’ auch heute wandern  
>  Vorbei in tiefer Nacht,  
>  Da hab’ ich noch im Dunkel  
>  Die Augen zugemacht.  
>    
>  Und seine Zweige rauschten,  
>  Als riefen sie mir zu:  
>  Komm her zu mir, Geselle,  
>  Hier findest Du Deine Ruh’!  
>    
>  Die kalten Winde bliesen  
>  Mir grad’ in’s Angesicht;  
>  Der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe,  
>  Ich wendete mich nicht.  
>    
>  Nun bin ich manche Stunde  
>  Entfernt von jenem Ort,  
>  Und immer hör’ ich’s rauschen:  
>  Du fändest Ruhe dort! 

          “ _Perfekt_ ,” said Arnheiter, with a smile as Konrad sang the old song by Schubert about remembering one’s home when far away.[3]

          Having finished “ _Am Brunnen vor dem Tore_ ,” Konrad Genscher cast wildly about in his mind for another song, as the other men in the German ward of the field hospital—fifty or more—all seemed to be looking at him expectantly. What could he sing that the British captors would not object to? His first thought was “ _Wandern ist des Müllers Lust_ ,” but on second thought he decided against hiking or rambling songs; that would probably make Friedrich even more melancholy than he was already.

          Then Genscher thought of one that everyone would probably know, and that harked back to old folk tales of the _Rübezahl_ , the ancient wild guardian of mountains and forests. The song had arisen from the youth movement after the Great War, and was very popular.

> _Hohe Tannen weisen die Sterne, **[4]**_  
>  _Von der Iser wild schäumender Flut._  
>  _Liegt das Lager auch in weiter Ferne,_  
>  _Doch du, Rübezahl, hütest es gut._  
>  _Liegt das Lager auch in weiter Ferne,_  
>  _Doch du, Rübezahl, hütest es gut._
> 
> _Hat sich uns zu eigen gegeben,_  
>  _Der die Sagen und Märchen ersinnt,_  
>  _Und im tiefsten Waldesleben,_  
>  _Als eine Riesen Gestalt annimmt._  
>  _Und im tiefsten Waldesleben,_  
>  _Als eine Riesen Gestalt annimmt._
> 
> _Komm zu uns an das flackernde Feuer,_  
>  _In die Berge bei stürmischer Nacht._  
>  _Schütz die Zelte, die Heimat, die teure,_  
>  _Komm und halte mit uns treue Wacht._  
>  _Schütz die Zelte, die Heimat, die teure,_  
>  _Komm und halte mit uns treue Wacht!_

          There were additional verses, added after 1933, but he had always refused to sing those. “Hohe Tannen” was a good choice; Genscher saw pleased expressions on the faces of most of his audience, for such they were. Had he but known it, he had just made his performing debut in, of all places, this hospital tent near El Alamein. Even Arnheiter had a smile in his eyes; he loved that song as well.

          “What are you bloody lot carrying on about?!” An officer in British uniform with the insignia of a doctor bustled into the tent, his demeanor bristling with irritation and annoyance.

          “Nothing’s wrong, Doctor Jamison,” said one of the Queen Alexandra nursing sisters calmly. “This man here is singing a few songs to cheer his comrades a little bit.”

          “Well, it can’t go on,” he declared, huffing into his mustache. “It’s making a bl— er, a filthy racket, and disturbing our own lads. Keeping them awake, what? Put a stop to it at once.” He strode out, confident of his orders being followed.

          Once the doctor had departed, taking his officious manner with him, the nurse shook her head with a sigh. The young soldier’s singing, even of two brief songs, had made a difference that she could readily observe. His pleasant tenor voice had lifted the cloud of gloom and dejection that had been almost like a palpable presence in the prisoners’ ward. Many of the men, even the one who had learned he would never see again in this world, were smiling. Not only that, but the young blond man in the bed next to the singer, who was wounded in one leg and missing the other, looked better than he had in days. _Who knows? Perhaps I can even get that boy to eat something..._

          Aloud she said, “Better end the concert for now, boys. But don’t mind him too much. I will speak to the head doctor about letting you all sing if you wish to.” She eyed her watch, and saw that it was ten minutes before ten. “And you’ll want to hear the radio in a few minutes anyway,” she added as she turned up the volume a bit so that all the men could hear Radio Belgrade’s nightly sign-off with “Lili Marleen.”

          By morning, the nursing sister, whose name was Catherine Hayward, had an interesting report to make to her superior. Outside the tent, as she went off her night duty, she encountered both the head matron and the head surgeon, Dr. Appleby. “Good morning, Miss Hawthorne,” said the middle-aged doctor amiably. “And how are all your charges this morning?”

          “Quite well, sir, all fairly quiet.” He had gotten her name wrong, again, but she had other things to think about. “Doctor, Matron, there’s something I observed that you should know, I think.”

          “Indeed?” said the matron, intrigued. “What would that be?”

          “Overnight, in the prisoners’ ward, I and the other nurse had half the usual number of requests for pain medication, and many fewer of the men were wakeful or restless. In the British ward tents, the demand for pain relief was essentially the same as before.”

          “Well!” exclaimed the doctor, “that is remarkable. To what do you attribute this sudden change?”

          “One of the Germans was singing to the others, sir, before Lights Out. Many of them joined in singing as well.”

          “I thought that might be it,” he said. “I heard about this from Jamison, who was rather wrought up about it. But you think it’s helped them, do you?”

          She hesitated. “No one’s condition has changed much, Doctor. The improvement is in their morale. One young fellow who’s hardly eaten enough in the last week to keep my old cat alive actually ate his breakfast today, all of it.” Hayward looked at both of the others. “May we continue to let them sing? It seems to do them a great deal of good.”

          “No doubt that is why Jamison was incensed by it. He regards anything that is good for them as a bad thing, on principle. Very well, let them sing, provided it does not create a disturbance, and they steer clear of any political pieces or Nazi stuff—no ‘Horst Wessel’ or any of that rubbish. After the evening meal and before 9:45 pm, they have leave to do so.”

          The matron nodded in agreement. “But if it causes trouble of any sort, that leave shall be withdrawn. I shall pass that word to the rest of the staff.”

          Miss Hayward smiled. “I shall tell them so, Doctor, Matron. They will be very pleased to hear that.”

          And so it went. Every evening after the dinner trays were taken up, Konrad Genscher was deluged with bits of paper with songs they wanted to hear, or sing together. The third night, Konrad said hesitantly, “Fritz?”

          “Mmmm?” His roommate looked up from the letter he was trying to write without much success. His family needed to know what was going on, but it was very difficult for him to decide just how much to tell them.

          The Bavarian radioman gestured with his sound hand to the pile of paper scraps in his lap. “They keep asking for, well, for _Wanderlieder_ —but I don’t want you to be...”

          Arnheiter waved a hand dismissively. “It’s all right, Konrad. Don’t mind me. _Es gibt für mich kein Wandern mehr_ , but I am not so selfish as to say, don’t sing any hiking songs on my account. Some of our best songs are those. Sing them—it does everyone good, even me.”

          “Don’t lose hope of that, Fritz. They can do a lot of things now, better than they could before. You will be able to be a _Wandersmann_ again someday, I am sure of it.”

          “Yes, perhaps. One never knows.”

          Thanking him, Konrad began to sing a journeyman’s walking song that was quite popular and well-liked.

> _Auf, du junger Wandersmann_ **[5]**,  
>            Jetzo kommt die Zeit heran,  
>            Die Wanderzeit, die gibt uns Freud’!  
>            Woll’n uns auf die Fahrt begeben,  
>            Das ist unser schönstes Leben,  
>            Großes Wasser, Berg und Tal,  
>            Anzuschauen überall…

           Arnheiter listened to his friend singing what had once been one of his favorite songs with a feeling of regret. Those days would never return. Privately, he had already given up on the greatest joy in his life, which was roaming and rambling through the woods and hills of his homeland of Thüringen. The hardest thing he had said farewell to in the last few days was his plan to walk the _Rennsteig_ trail once more, the first thing he had planned to do when he returned home at the end of the war. He had done the full 102-mile hike through the Thüringer Wald twice before. The first time, he was fourteen, and it was the last group endeavor before their _Wandervogel_ troop was forcibly disbanded in 1934 by the new Nazi government. The second time was with his school friends Walter and Kurt when they were nineteen, a year after they had finished school and before leaving their hometown of Ilmenau to begin their Army training. For the three of them, hiking the _Rennsteig_ from end to end had been both a rite of passage and a farewell to the homeland they loved in case they never returned from war. 

* * *

[1] Known later in life, after moving to California, as Joe Early, M.D.  Bobby Troup, who played Dr. Early in _Emergency!_ , was born in 1918, making him, and Dr. Early, 24 years old in 1942—just the right age to be a medical student drafted into the Army.  I decided to make Joe a native of the Amanas once I discovered that the German surname Ehrle was very common there.

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20050616010332/http://swiki.hfbk-hamburg.de:8888/Lebensreform/70.

[3] https://lyricstranslate.com/en/am-brunnen-vor-dem-tore-well-outside-gate.html

[4] https://lyricstranslate.com/en/hohe-tannen-high-fir-trees.html

[5](Note: I can find no English translation online for this one). The German text is here: https://www.lieder-archiv.de/auf_du_junger_wandersmann-notenblatt_100126.html 


	3. Out to Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wounded and captured at El Alamein, best friends Friedrich Arnheiter and Konrad Genscher are shipped to England as prisoners of war.

_Hope begins in the dark._

—Anne Lamott

 

          The next several days brought more changes. A number of the patients, both Allied and German, who were well enough to be moved were notified that they would be taken to Alexandria and from there transported by hospital ship to England. Genscher was worried that he would be taken and Arnheiter would be left behind to recover longer, but his fears were ungrounded—they were in fact destined for the same ship.

          The journey by trucks to Alexandria was not especially comfortable, although the medical staff who went along with them did their best. At least the coast road was paved for this portion of it that was in Egypt.

          Once they arrived, they were boarded onto a former passenger liner, now painted white with the red crosses along the sides marking her as a hospital ship, renamed _HMHS Isle of Mull_. Arnheiter lingered as long as he could, dropping to the end of the line to be boarded, looking at Africa for the last time until the orderlies wheeled him on board and took him below decks.

          Once settled into a berth, luckily near Konrad’s, he was unable to sleep. It was late morning, and he was not at all sleepy. What he wanted was to go back up on deck and watch the sea and sky and the coast of North Africa slowly receding in the distance. It wasn’t quite the same view that he had seen when he had arrived in Africa thirteen months before, as then the ship had docked in Benghazi. But there were no orderlies around, and he didn’t speak any English, so he had no way of making that desire known. Even if he could communicate that he wanted to be on deck, Arnheiter rather doubted that anyone would let him in his current condition. With a sigh of resignation, he fished out the small canvas pouch which held the belongings that had been in his pockets when he was captured, which the hospital staff had carefully returned to him just as to all the others. His wristwatch, his shirt-pocket sketchbook, his Faber-Castell fountain pen, and several pencils had all been in his pockets, along with the button from Hauptmann Dietrich’s sleeve that he had absently shoved into his pocket after helping the captain climb up into the radio truck. The sketchbook, the button, and the pencils were still there, but his pen and his wristwatch had disappeared. _Some things don’t change._

          Taking one of the pencils, he started over on the letter he had been trying to write home on the special paper form that they were required to use. It wasn’t very big, so he wrote as small as he could.

  

> _20\. November 1942_
> 
> _Liebe Onkel Helmut und Tante Trudi, und die liebste Oma,_
> 
> _I hope this letter finds you all well and in good spirits. If you heard about our heavy battle at El Alamein, you may have been worried about me. I am writing from a hospital ship on the way to England. I was wounded and captured on 9. November. When we arrive, the Red Cross will notify you where to write back to me. I was wounded in both legs, so they will send me to a hospital camp first. My best friend Konrad was wounded and captured as well, and he and I are here together on the ship._
> 
> _  
> _
> 
> _24\. November, evening  
>         We have been four days now on this ship. Yesterday we were in Gibraltar for a few hours. Every evening, Konrad has been singing to us all. Even the English soldiers want to be in our section to listen to him. He says he will sing all the way to England… _

          Arnheiter paused, and regarded what he had written so far, and sighed. He had tried to reassure them and not make them anxious, but too much was left unsaid.

          “You look,” said Konrad from the neighboring berth, “as though you are trying to solve a puzzle. One of your chess puzzles, maybe. What’s the trouble?”

          “The same as before.” He gestured to the empty space in the blankets where his right leg should have been. “What do I tell them, and how much?”

          “Do you have to tell them anything? Maybe it’s better if they don’t know. It won’t upset _die Großmutter_ so much…”

          Admittedly, that idea had crossed Arnheiter’s mind too. He shook his head, rueful. “I must tell them sometime. I cannot wait ten years until I get back to Ilmenau, and then say, ‘ _ach_ , I forgot to tell you something…’ That won’t do.”

          Genscher made a face. “I suppose not. Then say it like you’re reporting something to _der_ _Herr Hauptmann_ , short and straightforward. That’s what Papa always said to me about taking medicine—just do it and have it over with.”

          “ _Ja, das stimmt_. You’re right.” Arnheiter went back to writing the letter.

 

>           … _He says he will sing for us all the way to England._
> 
> _You may already have news from the Army reporting me captured. I hope it has not distressed you too much. I must tell you, the English doctors are very kind and did all that they could for me. The wounds in my left leg will heal soon, but the right knee was destroyed and they could not save the leg. They gave me penicillin, and I am recovering well. Do not be worried about me._
> 
> _I think of you all very often, and I will write again when it is permitted._
> 
> _Wie immer, mit große Liebe,_
> 
> _eure Fritz_

          As he had done in every letter for some time, he always made a little sketch, a little drawing either in the margin or filling the remainder of the page. Perhaps it was a bit of scenery, or a sketch of some of his friends, or some desert flowers—he never knew what he would draw there until the time came. This time—what could he draw to show them how things stood? On their way to Alexandria, the ambulance truck had passed more than one wrecked tank, no longer smoking but abandoned and broken in the desert like the carcass of some extinct primordial creature. And that was what he drew—a wrecked Panzer with no treads on one side and the turret gun listing at a crazy angle. A few solitary shrubs around it cast their shadows on the sand. Beside one of the thorn bushes, Arnheiter drew the same little red fox that he had always put in somewhere in his _Briefbilder,_ ever since arriving in Africa. This time, the fox sat alone beside the destroyed tank, his head raised to the sky in a howl of lamentation.

          _I am recovering well… Well, that wasn’t exactly true_ , Arnheiter reflected as he closed up the letter. The wound from the amputation surgery seemed to be healing up well enough, at least judging by the mumbled noises the nurse made every morning when she made rounds, took temperatures and changed dressings. Twice a day she unwrapped the bandaging on the remaining part of the leg, checked the incision, felt for a pulse, and firmly rewrapped it again.

          The bullet wound in his left thigh was a different matter. With a dusting of sulfa and a 10-day course of penicillin—the Allies’ “wonder drug”--it had improved dramatically, but now it was growing worse again. The pain had increased instead of getting better, the area felt hot and looked red, and his fever had returned. _But I am not telling die Familie about that. They will be worried for no purpose. By the time the letter gets to them, I will be either recovered or dead_. He frowned, knitting his brows as he thought. That was making him think of something, something that involved time and dates, but right now it was escaping him. 

          The nurse came again the next morning, as she did every day. She visited Konrad first as he was nearer the door, and duly took his temperature and checked the tightness of the cast on his arm by handling the tips of his fingers. After that, she turned to Arnheiter in the next berth. She unwrapped, examined, cleaned, and rewrapped the stump of his right leg as she had every morning, and then went to change the dressing on the left thigh. She clicked her tongue, looked sober, and left the room at once.

          When she returned, a doctor accompanied her.  He was followed by an orderly, a young man whom they had already seen a number of times in the prisoners’ ward on the ship functioning in the capacity of an interpreter. The doctor, a kindly-featured man in his thirties with brown wavy hair and a mustache, sat down beside Arnheiter and took a look at the wound, which had clearly become infected again.

          “I hate to tell you this...” he paused and looked at the chart, “Corporal, but we’ll have to operate again on this one.”

          The interpreter repeated what he had said; at the words “... _wieder operiert werden,_ ” Arnheiter’s blue eyes grew wide with alarm. “ _Bitte, mein Herr, nein... nicht die beide!”_

          “He thinks you mean to take this one off too,” said the orderly quietly, and the ruddy-haired doctor shook his head. “No, no, my boy, be calm. I don’t think that will be necessary. But clearly there’s something in there that is preventing it from healing.” He waited while the orderly translated for him. “ _In der Kampf,”_ he went on, _“haben Sie kurze Hose, oder lange Hose_?” Doctor Patrick Thompson knew very little German, but he thought if he used what he could, this fellow would be less agitated.

          “ _Es ist November_ ,” said Arnheiter, his own blue eyes meeting the doctor’s. “ _Ich habe lange Hose getragen, natürlich_.” No one, not even madcap Konrad, would wear short pants at this time of year—nights in the desert were much colder than one would expect.

          “Aha, just as I suspected. My guess is that a tiny bit of cloth from your uniform trousers is still in the wound there, and of course the cloth would have been dirty. That’s why it won’t close up and the infection is still there.” It wasn’t that surprising. The surgeons in the field hospitals near El Alamein had had hundreds if not thousands of casualties to treat, under appalling conditions and poor lighting, not to mention high winds and blowing sand. “It might be a small piece of debris or metal, but certainly something is in there that shouldn’t be.” Dr Thompson turned to speak with the nurse. “It’s fairly early—have these men been served breakfast yet?”

          “No, Doctor, not yet. That should be in about half an hour.”

          “Excellent. So this man has had no food or fluids in roughly ten hours?” He checked the chart. “Very well, we can do this straight away.” He wrote on the chart in large letters, NPO, meaning _nil per ora_ or ‘nothing by mouth.’ To Arnheiter, Thompson said, “You haven’t had any food since last night?”

          “ _Nein, mein Herr, nichts_ ,” replied the fair-haired corporal once the orderly had repeated the question. “ _Nur ein bißchen Wasser, um Mitternacht._ ” Which was true enough; he had dutifully eaten the food they had brought him, but it hadn’t stayed down for long.

          “ _Gut_. That should be all right. We are going to take you in and get this taken care of right now. _Verstehen Sie_? It will not take a long time, and we will remove whatever is causing the infection. When you wake up, you should have much less pain and feel rather better than you do now.” The young German’s flushed face and oddly-bright eyes told him that the less time they wasted, the better.

          Arnheiter nodded.  He understood the problem, and the necessity for a further operation. But this doctor seemed kind and patient, and there was something that he had to ask. One of the other men had made a statement some days ago that he couldn’t quite put out of his mind, even though he was fairly certain that it wasn’t true.  “ _Ein Moment, bitte..._ ” He reached to touch the physician’s sleeve. “ _Ich... ich habe eine Frage.”_

          “Yes, Corporal?” Thompson knew that ‘Frage’ meant ‘question’. “What is it?”

          Arnheiter made eye contact with the orderly, to be sure his question would be understood. “You have the records there, _mein Herr_. It tells you everything?”

          “Yes, it does.”

          “Does it say...” He faltered. There was no good way to ask this. He gestured to the remainder of his right leg. “Does it say that they had to do this? It was necessary?”

          “Why, yes. What makes you ask, my boy?”

          The corporal took a deep breath. He was sure it wasn’t true, but not completely sure, and he had to know. “One man here said to me if I were an Englishman, they would have tried to save the leg.” The orderly translated. “But I am the enemy, so they don’t even try, they just cut.”

          “Good God...” said the young physician, appalled. “No, Corporal, I give you my word. Here—you can see for yourself.” Thompson opened the folder and held a piece of X-ray film up to the light. “A knee joint is a hinge, and it only works if both the surfaces are intact. Look here...”

          Arnheiter saw, and understood, paling a little. “ _Ja… Ja, ich verstehe._ ” Where there ought to have been the lower end of the femur and the upper end of the tibia, there were only shattered pieces of bone. Of the kneecap there was nothing left that could be identified. It was as he had been told by the nurse on the first day. The heavy-caliber round had destroyed the joint altogether.

          “You see there was no choice—it had to be done. No doctor on earth could repair that.” The doctor sighed. “But there is more I must tell you. All medical doctors take an oath when we receive our education. This oath is thousands of years old, and was first used by a Greek doctor named Hippocrates. We pledge to do no harm to a patient, and to treat all patients to the best of our ability, and to do what is best for them. Hippocrates has no country; this is the proper practice in all countries, everywhere. If a surgeon or a physician cannot treat all patients the same, wherever they come from, then he should give up his profession and go in the hills to herd sheep where no human lives are in his hands. Do you understand?”

         

          “I was right,” said Dr. Thompson later that morning, after his patient had awakened from the procedure. “The field surgeons missed seeing one small bit of cloth, less than a centimeter. But all should go well now.” He and his assistant had removed the foreign material, flushed the wound with saline solution, and closed it up, leaving a drain in it for the time being.

          “Thank you.” Arnheiter was still fuzzy-headed and queasy from the ether, but he wrinkled his nose, frowning. “Strange—I can smell honey.”

          “Yes, that’s right. A gift to medical science from the old Egyptians. A wound dressed with honey will not remain septic or become so; bacteria cannot live in it.” He smiled, tired. “To tell the truth, honey works just as well as sulfa, if not better. The orderly will be along soon to take you back to your berth.”

         

          The next evening, Konrad Genscher and the man called Willi sat near Arnheiter so the three men could play cards. Arnheiter was lying on the bed face down, but propped on his elbows; that was the doctor’s orders to prevent his hip joints from becoming frozen in the same position.

          “Yes, Fritz, I asked when they let me walk for exercise. I even bribed the orderly to find out if there was any man on this ship from Schleswig-Holstein.”

          The company clerk frowned.  “Bribed? With what?”

          Konrad laid down three cards on the table. “I gave him my watch.”

          “Really? Your watch! But…”

          “It’s got sand in it,” replied the Bavarian corporal with a wry smile. “It doesn’t work all that well. But he told me. There are only two, and they’re both enlisted men. One from Husum, and one from Schönberg. He’s not here, Fritz.”

          “Who is this you’re talking about?” Willi asked, intrigued.

          “Our captain,” explained Genscher. “ _Hauptmann_ Dietrich. We’re from Kompanie 4, 3rd Panzer Reconnaissance. Fritz here is worrying himself to pieces because we don’t know where _der Hauptmann_ is or what happened to him.”

          “Look at what happened to me,” said Arnheiter, dismal. “And he was right there next to me, nearer than you are now, Konrad. He must have been shot as well. It can’t have hit me in both legs and missed _Herr Hauptmann_ entirely…”

          “It could, you know,” said Willi, thoughtful. “Didn’t you say this happened when you were in the back of a truck?”

          “ _Ja, genau_. I was standing and firing at the British coming after us, and so was he, to my left and back a little.” As time had passed, he had slowly, little by little, begun to remember the events of the last afternoon of the battle.

          “If he was just a foot or two back, it almost certainly would miss him, especially if the driver swerved a little. The next two or three rounds probably went through the side of the truck. I take it you’re not in artillery…”

          “We’re both radiomen. I’m the clerk…or I was.”

          “Well, that explains it. See here…” Willi was a gunner, so for him it was easy to explain. He used two of the playing cards to represent the two vehicles, and a pencil to show the straight-line trajectory of the machine gun. “So, this _Hauptmann_ of yours is a lucky fellow, if he was standing where you said he was.”

          “I’m certain. Yes, that’s where he was.” _Could it really be possible?_

          One of the other men in the prisoners’ ward started singing an old love song that had been around for centuries and was still much beloved.   Konrad added his strong tenor voice to support his.        

 _Ännchen von Tharau ist’s, die mir gefällt._  
Sie ist mein Reichtum, mein Gut und mein Geld.  
Ännchen von Tharau hat wieder ihr Herz  
auf mich gerichtet in Lieb und in Schmerz.  
Ännchen von Tharau, mein Reichtum, mein Gut,  
du meine Seele, mein Fleisch und mein Blut.

__

_Recht als ein Palmenbaum über sich steigt,_  
je mehr ihn Hagel und Regen anficht,  
so wird die Lieb in uns mächtig und groß  
durch Kreuz, durch Leiden, durch mancherlei Not.  
Ännchen von Tharau, mein Reichtum, mein Gut,  
du meine Seele, mein Fleisch und mein Blut.

 _Würdest du gleich einmal von mir getrennt,_  
lebtest da, wo man die Sonne kaum kennt,  
ich will dir folgen durch Wälder, durch Meer,  
Durch Eisen und Kerker und feindliches Heer.  
Ännchen von Tharau, mein Licht, meine Sonn’,  
mein Leben schließ ich um deines herum.

([ _https://youtu.be/3YZSLiWty8Y_ ](https://youtu.be/3YZSLiWty8Y) _)_

<<<<<>>>>>

**25\. November 1942**

**Ilmenau in Thüringen**

Late in the winter afternoon, Christina Arnheiter looked up from her spinning wheel as her son came into their house at Thomas-Mann-Straße 17, in the town of Ilmenau.  The soft grey fleece that she had carded the week before now lay in a thick pile of sausage-shaped rolls of wool that she would spin one after another into strong sock yarn. Then she and her daughter-in-law Trudi would knit the yarn into sturdy grey socks for the two men in the family: her son Helmut and his nephew, her grandson Friedrich. Both of them needed good socks; Helmut worked for the postal service and young Fritz was a soldier in the _Afrika Korps_ , and had been for the past year.

          But today Helmut’s expression was different; he moved like a man ten years older than he was. As he set down a parcel on the table, Trudi came bustling into the front room from the kitchen, wiping floury hands on her embroidered apron. “I’m making _Nudeln_ for our supper… Helmut! Are you all right? Whatever is the matter?”

          Her husband slowly took off his coat and his hat, hanging them on their accustomed peg as he did every evening, but this evening he almost seemed to not be aware of what he was doing. “There is a parcel for us, and a letter. Both of them are from the battalion headquarters; the sender is Hauptmann H. Dietrich.” He sat down heavily in his usual chair before the fire. “Mother, Gertrude… it cannot be good news.” The letter alone would not be so definite, but the letter and a package? And from Friedrich’s captain? There could only be one reason for that.

          His mother’s hands stopped moving, but her feet continued to treadle so that the end of the spun yarn abruptly vanished out of her hands onto the wheel bobbin.

          Gertrude Arnheiter—Trudi, to her friends and family—stood there, pale, but not yet ready to give up hope altogether. “Open it, Helmut. What does the letter say? Perhaps the news is not so bad as that.”

          Helmut, not an old man, but no longer young, slowly took up the envelope and slit it open with his penknife. “Here is what _der Hauptmann_ says.”

 

 

> _Mein lieber Herr Arnheiter,_
> 
>   
>  _Ich bedauere sehr die Umstände, unter denen ich muss diesen Brief zu schreiben. Ich muss Ihnen mitteilen, daß ihr Neffe Friedrich N. Arnheiter, im Kampf in der Nähe der Dorf El Alamein am 8. November gefallen war, da unser Kompanie im Rückzug aus diesem Gebiet war. Ich hoffe daß es Ihnen Trost gibt, es zu wissen, daß seine letzte Tat eine auffällige Tapferkeit war, die meinem eigenen Leben gerettet hat. Dabei setzte er sich selbst in Gefahr, durch seine eigene Wahl... Er war einer meiner besten und bewährtesten Männer, und...” **[1]**_

          It was, after all, true. Trudi sank down into the rocking chair—the same chair in which she had read fairy stories to the small boy who had been to the childless couple the only son they had. Covering her face with her apron, she broke into disconsolate sobbing.

          “Those wretched heathens,” exclaimed her mother-in-law from the corner at the spinning wheel.  “They have killed our little boy…”

          “Who?” asked her son, puzzled. “The English?”

          “No,” said Christina harshly, “the butchers in Berlin! They are the ones who sent so many of our sons there, to no purpose…” Her anger had no proper outlet, as she could hardly hobble out of doors and shake her fist in helpless fury at the powers that be, nor bring the High Command to account for the pointless waste of thousands of young men’s lives. Sunday, perhaps, she would demand the pastor tell her where God was in this circumstance.

          “He saved his captain’s life, says this.” Helmut Arnheiter folded the letter back up. “That is good to know. He was a nervous and shy boy, but he became a brave man.” _And at least his life was not spent for nothing._ “We have much to be proud of in him.”

          “ _Prut_!” said his mother. “Our Fritz has always been brave. But his courage is of the quiet kind, not the sort who marches about the town waving banners to show how brave he is.”  

          “He has told us before, he would gladly follow that officer to the world’s end.”

<<<<<>>>>> 

          It was the last night they would be aboard the hospital ship, and an air of tension permeated the prisoners’ berth. No one knew what sort of fate awaited them on English shores, what would become of them, or when they would ever see their homes again. At least three quarrels broke out that evening—over what, Arnheiter couldn’t hear. He himself wasn’t sure what to think or how to feel. He had carefully tucked the unsealed envelope with the letter to his family in his inner breast pocket of his uniform tunic, which he still had, although the hospital staff had given him another pair of trousers to replace his ruined ones.

<<<<<>>>>> 

          “Fritz?” Konrad asked, from where he sat on the foot of the bed. They had borrowed a tray from the kitchen and a checkers set from the steward, and were playing their second game that evening.  “Do you know my address? My parents’ house?”

          Arnheiter sighed. “I did, a few weeks ago before the battle. I knew everyone’s address and their service numbers, too. Now it’s all gone. Why do you ask?” He presumed it must have been the shock of being wounded or being under anesthesia twice in two weeks, but his carefully memorized personnel information from their entire company had vanished from his recollection as if it had blown away in a sudden _khamsin._

          “I have an idea. Probably you and I will not end up in the same place. I hear the British try to separate prisoners who know each other, and besides I think they will keep you in hospital longer than me.” The dark-haired Bavarian jumped three of his opponent’s checkers and made a ‘king’ on the last rank. “So let’s do this. I give you my address and you give me yours, because your family will know where you are, and my parents will know where I am. The Red Cross will see to that—remember those _Postkarten_ we filled out when we boarded the ship. Once we’re assigned to a camp, they will mail those.”

          “ _Ja_ ,” said his erstwhile tentmate, brightening at the thought of that. “I write to your family, and you write to mine. Then we will be able to know about each other.” In a moment, though, his expression grew somber. “If they let us.” He reached forward and jumped one of Konrad’s checkers, then one more. “I wish I could remember the personnel information. If I could, then I can write to Wolf’s family, and Rudi’s, and...” He fell silent.

         Konrad finished the sentence for him. “And _Hauptmann Dietrich_.”

          “ _Ja_.” Arnheiter nodded.  “Like you said, the Red Cross has to notify our families, so his _Mutti_ would know where he is, or what’s happened to him. But I can’t remember anymore. It’s all gone. So you had better give your address to me on paper, or I can write it in my sketchbook. Someone might take that away from me, though. I have heard that the soldiers will take anything they can, like a trophy to prove you shot a deer.” He had already lost his watch and his pen, though it wasn’t his best pen, at least.

          “Here,” said Genscher, writing his family’s address in Marienstadt on a page in Arnheiter’s shirt-pocket sketchbook, and then tearing the page loose. “Fold up the paper and put it in your sock, then. They won’t take your boot off, would they?”

         “Who knows? They might. I have a better idea. I’ll put it in here. No one will unwrap this.” Arnheiter gestured to the wrappings on the stump of his right thigh. _Except for the doctors, men turn their eyes away when they see that. They won’t look there._ The little book was thin enough, he decided, that he might be able to tuck it in there as well, or into his remaining boot underneath his left foot.

         “ _Um Gottes willen!” What a thought…_ “But you might be right, at that. I don’t think they would.”

          Arnheiter felt suddenly despondent. It was entirely possible that after the next day, if they were sent to separate camps, he and his best friend would never see each other again, never be able to find each other in the chaos that was bound to overwhelm Germany once the war ended, no matter who won. “What are we going to do? How will we ever find each other again?”

          “What we just decided, remember? Our families will know, and they can tell each other.”

          “Maybe it won’t work. Or anything else could happen.”

          Konrad thought rapidly. It had been a long time since his friend had had one of the occasional fits of anxiety, but it looked like it was about to happen again. He recognized the odd tone of voice that told him Arnheiter was on the verge of panic. _I can’t blame him, though. He’s been through worse than I have…ach, I have an idea._ “Don’t worry, Fritz. _Beruhige dich._ Here’s what we’ll do. Whenever the war ends—only God knows when—on the next mid-summer day, 21 June, we will meet at the beginning of the Rennsteig trail[2]. We both know where that is.”

          “You mean, in Hörschel, near Eisenach?” A slow smile began to warm his blue eyes.

          “ _Ja, genau._ There’s a hostel there, right? I’ve never been there, but you told me once that you have stayed in it.”

          “Of course I have.”

          “And… if somehow that doesn’t work, or we miss one another, then…” Genscher added quickly, thinking fast, “how about the _Münchner Rathaus_ , on 21. September when Oktoberfest opens? The _Altes Rathaus_ , that is. And then we’ll have all the _Bier_ we can get our hands on…”

          Arnheiter nodded. “ _Ausgezeichnet_.” That sounded like a splendid notion to him.

          “But let’s try meeting on the _Rennsteig_ first. And we will finish the whole way, somehow, even if I have to push you in a chair or carry you on my back. We will do it, on my word.”

<<<<<>>>>> 

          Some of the men started singing “Alte Kameraden” but no one was really in the mood for it, and the few attempts to sing anything else faded away for lack of participation. In a sense, the several days on board the hospital ship had been sort of an interlude, a state of limbo between their past lives as soldiers and their future lives as prisoners for an unknown period of time. Now that that limbo was reaching an end, there were too many uncertainties and troubles on their minds for even Konrad’s singing to allay.

          Arnheiter tried to keep up his spirits for his friend’s sake, but had begun to realize the next day, he would once again be thrust into an unknown situation entirely alone, without anyone to trust or to depend on. Even the knowledge that thousands of others faced identical circumstances offered him little comfort. The ache in his soul pained him far more than any physical wound.

<<<<<>>>>>

26\. November

          The next morning, _HMHS Isle of Mull_ docked at Southampton and the wounded men, Allies first and then the prisoners of war, were slowly disembarked in a column, two by two like some bizarrely misunderstood version of Noah’s Ark. To the Germans’ surprise, all of them except the most seriously wounded were directed to a waiting passenger train. The Allied men were boarded on the first two cars, and the Germans on the last two. The cars were regular passenger cars with upholstered seats and small tables mounted between each pair of seats. They had never traveled with such accommodations, ever, not even in their home country.  Arnheiter, being in a wheelchair like a few of the others, were also boarded onto the same cars, and placed at the end where there was enough space. Konrad Genscher quickly followed, in order that they could sit together. Presently, to their complete astonishment, the train stewards, assisted by some English soldiers, brought hot porridge for each man along with small jugs of milk.[3]

          “Well, at least they don’t seem inclined to starve us,” said Konrad, brightening as he helped himself.  _Unlike, say, the Italians or the High Command..._ Having both hands free, Arnheiter held the dish steady for him on the tabletop so that his friend could eat it with his only available hand. When Konrad had finished, his roommate turned his attention to his own portion. It was odd stuff, this, with a texture not like any sort of wheat gruel. But it was good, and it was warm, and the food seemed to magically cheer all of them. They’d had it on board the British ship, too, but this batch was even better. 

          The train journey into London took about four hours, more or less.  Arnheiter dozed off more than once from the warm porridge and not enough sleep. He wasn’t entirely sure how long the trip was. “Look at it this way, Fritz,” said the Bavarian quietly as they passed through the English countryside. “We’re getting a chance to start over again. A lot of fellows won’t get that chance.”

          The fair-haired corporal looked at his friend, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

          “Well, like I said, you and I are out of the fighting for good. We’re both cripples—no one will ever make soldiers of us again. And with only one good arm, I’ll never be sent back down the mine. I can sing, and you can paint. We might have to leave the country to do it, but it seems to me that we have a chance to get our lives back and do the things _der Herr Gott_ meant us to do in the first place.”

          When they arrived, they found that their destination was the Kempton Park racecourse. The Allied wounded were then transferred to a different train taking them to a military hospital; Kempton Park was the first destination for all German prisoners, whether wounded or not. The weather was cold and raw, and the wind was whipping the trees and the flags adorning the gates. It was not raining at that moment, but it looked as if it had just stopped, or perhaps was about to begin. Before long, a doctor, two orderlies and a nurse—another of Queen Alexandra’s auxiliaries—boarded the train. The doctor, who spoke fairly good German, explained that they were there to determine which men needed further treatment in a hospital camp, and which ones could be processed here and sent on to whichever POW camp the screeners selected. “The ones who can be discharged will be taken over there to that hut to await their interview procedure. Those who need to be in hospital will stay here on the train, and be transported to the hospital camp at P______.” While they all waited, the nurse walked up and down the cars and gave a bar of chocolate and a tin of Players cigarettes to each man. As they had half expected, Genscher would stay and be processed, while Arnheiter would go to the hospital camp. Unperturbed, Konrad rose from his seat and offered his hand; the two friends clasped hands like Romans. “ _Heia Safari,_ ” he said. “ _Halte die Ohren steif_![4]“

          “ _Heia Safari,_ ” Arnheiter replied. “ _Du auch_.” He wanted to say more, but the guard led Genscher away. Arnheiter watched them through the window of the carriage—the tall burly guard and his short dark-haired friend—until he could see them no more. The other men in the train carriage were all strangers to him. None of them had belonged to 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion. For the first time in over a year, he was truly alone. Hours later, as darkness fell, he lay on the berth given him in the sleeping car and listened to the sound of the wheels and the steam engine until his weariness overcame him and he slept.

 

* * *

 

[1] My dear Herr und Frau Arnheiter,

            I regret very much the circumstances in which I must write this letter. I must inform you that your nephew, Friedrich N. Arnheiter, was killed in action near the town of El Alamein on the eighth day of November as our company was in retreat from that area. I hope it may comfort you to know that his last act was one of conspicuous bravery which in fact saved my own life. But in so doing, he exposed himself to danger by his own choice... He was one of my best and most trusted men, and...”

[2] It never occurred to them, nor to anyone else at that time, that most of the German POWs in Britain would not be allowed to return for several years after the end of the war. The last one was repatriated in the summer of 1948.

[3] Sullivan, Matthew B. _Thresholds of Peace._ p. 29.

[4] Keep your chin up! (lit., ‘keep your ears stiff’; that is, don’t let one’s ears droop (like an unhappy dog.)


End file.
